


A Stranger With Your Door Key

by Peapods



Series: The Fire Thief [4]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: M/M, Recovery, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 07:29:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10301081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: In the wake of Twin Peaks, Albert finds himself in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar role of caretaker. He's got a crick in his neck, a broken key dish, and maybe a slight drinking problem. He definitely has a Cooper Problem.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta Services Provided by @laughingpinecone. Thank goodness cause I've been working on this thing for too long and am no longer objective about the damn thing.

Albert is thankful that, at least, the sofa is comfortable. Cooper has no guest room and Albert has already thoroughly disabused him of the notion that he will be left on his own. 

Philadelphia is much as they left it. Cold as balls, grey, and full of displaced almost-New Yorkers who just want you to get on with life without interfering with theirs. It’s comforting to Albert. These are his people. They wear most of their ugliness on the outside, unobstructed by small town manners and hokey colloquialisms.

When they first arrive at Cooper's, Albert installs the other man on the couch with the remote and express instructions not to move, and goes on a tear. He removes the mouthwash and rubbing alcohol. He removes scissors and razors and even briefly contemplated the soap and shampoo. He palms the brylcream. Cooper hasn’t slicked back his thick hair since the beauty pageant.

Only Gordon Cole has been briefed on the details of Cooper’s possession and the lengths Albert went to bring him back. He had sealed those records immediately, knowing his best agent didn’t need OPR on his back and that his forensics genius would be in a shitload of trouble if _anyone_ knew what he did. Unfortunately, that also meant that Cooper wouldn’t be able to use the Bureau’s psychologists. That left them in a very tough spot.

Albert gets the very distinct feeling that he is fucked.

*****

The first morning Albert makes coffee, he regrets every moment that precedes and follows it. 

Cooper is, ostensibly, still asleep when Albert heaves himself off the couch and shuffles into the kitchen. It’s not a terribly well-stocked kitchen. Cooper, like most field agents, isn’t really home enough to keep fresh things. He’s got Lea and Perrins, garlic salt, and three bags of jasmine rice--staples of a man who buys a couple steaks and veggies and makes do. Last night, Albert stocked up on the essentials which meant three things: coffee, bacon, and cigarettes. He preps the coffee in a rote manner, barely taking care to measure anything correctly. He’s had coffee out of machines in hospitals and literally anything else is preferable, including generic coffee grounds from the nearest grocery.

He’s leaning against the counter, rubbing sleep from his eyes, when he starts to hear it. He freezes and strains his hearing toward the bedroom. There’s a definite shuffling, small noises, and then the jarring smack of something hitting the floor. 

Albert has the door opened and is halfway inside in seconds. Cooper is on the bed on his stomach. He’s reaching, reaching like he’ll die if he can’t get what he’s after. Albert can’t tell what he’s saying but the sounds are becoming louder.

They don’t resolve into words, Cooper is apparently not a sleep-talker, but there’s a definite cadence to the sounds. Albert is sickened to realize that Cooper is begging. 

“Coop,” Albert says, taking his shoulder, trying to haul him over onto his back. Cooper lashes out, as well he should because Albert is an _idiot_ , and catches Albert in the neck. It might bruise, it will probably hurt like a bitch, and Albert does not care. He keeps saying Cooper’s name, trying to wake him.

Cooper comes awake silently, suddenly. He flings himself over on his back, sees Albert, takes one sniff of the air, and hightails it to the bathroom. He’s throwing up before Albert even makes the door.

“The coffee,” Cooper manages to choke out before bending again.

Albert curses and runs out to the coffeemaker, now happily drip-dripping into the pot. He pulls the plug and dumps the brew down the sink, running the water and squirting half a bottle of dish soap around it. He burns his fingers when he opens up the coffeemaker and pulls out the filter, dumping it in a handy plastic bag before tying it off and throwing it onto Cooper’s balcony. There’s not much he can do about the lingering smell. Cooper’s apartment is neat as a pin and he can’t find anything remotely resembling air freshener. Instead, he returns to the bedroom and opens up the windows and turns on the ceiling fans. It’s supposed to get into the 70’s today although it is still chilly at 8:15.

He hears the toilet flush and the faucet running. He waits for Cooper, gingerly perching the spindly chair that sits in the corner. In his own apartment, the chair would have been loaded up with forensic journals. Cooper’s chair, along with the rest of the room, is spotless. There is a print of the movie poster for “Lost Horizon” on one wall and a signed photo of a young Dale and J. Edgar Hoover on another. Small touches related to Eastern philosophy dot the room. He snorts at this; Dale Cooper is a contradiction.

He’s studying an intricate painting of the Buddha when Cooper emerges. He looks better, slightly pale, but not traumatized.

“I apologize, Albert, I had not realized how much that would affect me.”

“Wanna tell me what it was?”

Cooper sits on the edge of his bed and stares at Albert. Albert wonders what he’s searching for. There’s only so much Albert can convey with his face. He raises an eyebrow. Cooper can trust him or not, but Albert has charged himself with his care and so far, Cooper has allowed it. Albert will not point out that he can’t help Cooper if he doesn’t know what the problem is. He won’t admit that he’s not sure he’ll be able to help him even if Cooper tells him everything.

Cooper folds to the ground on what Albert now realizes is a yoga mat, not a weird rug, and closes his eyes. Albert wants to sigh, but won’t deny him whatever gets him through this conversation.

“I was offered coffee. I took it. It was thick, burnt engine oil I thought, but no smell. But it changed. It turned to liquid. It spilled. I remember being--remember having that feeling of slight panic when you know something is gonna fall but maybe you can get to it in time.”

Albert wants to ask _Is that all?_ , but even he knows how insensitive that would sound. He knows, whatever Cooper endured, this narrative is charged with all the things he’s not saying. 

“So, maybe no coffee for awhile,” Albert says.

Cooper’s grimace is comical, “For now.”

“Yeah, I know that’s probably the most distressing thing you’ve discovered so far.”

Cooper smiles, a small and private thing, but a smile nonetheless. Albert stands, walking around the other man. “I’ve got to report in. Put in leave, the works. So if you could refrain from discovering anything new and interesting about yourself while I’m gone, that’d be a kindness.”

“Thank you, Albert,” Cooper says quietly.

*****

Janet in HR calls immediately after he puts in his leave request.

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Are you _dying_?”

“I won’t dignify that with a response.”

“You haven’t taken a vacation in five years. The one time we tried to force you to, you somehow still ended up in the lab after midnight on the second day. Who’s dying? Are you being blackmailed? Have you been _kidnapped_? We need a code-word. Tell me what happened at the holiday party three years ago.”

Albert just holds the phone away from his ear as she cycles through ever more ridiculous statements. 

“It’s only a week, Pearson, get ahold of yourself.”

“We have Bureau psychologists--”

“Janet, approve the damn leave and don’t call me. Ever again.”

She rings off after approving the leave and probably putting a red flag on his file. He mentally prepares himself for one of the well-meaning head shrinks to come down and ask him pointed questions. He wants to be out of the office before they can bother. He threatens a couple of underlings and grabs a few cases to work on. He’s out the door before noon.

When he returns to Cooper’s apartment, it is to the now stomach-turning smell of coffee. He drops everything and flings himself into Cooper’s bedroom, but the other man isn’t keeled over the toilet, he’s sitting exactly where Albert left him. He’s breathing deeply, eyes closed, and he almost looks peaceful as he meditates over a pot of cooling coffee.

Except that Albert can see his jaw working, the frequent swallowing, like his back teeth are swimming.

“I suppose that’s one way to get over it,” Albert interrupts. Cooper’s eyes open and meet his with a look of reproach. “But maybe not on the same day you tossed your cookies at the mere smell.”

“Albert, if I am to recover, if I am to heal, I must confront even the basest of fears. I would rather do that sooner than later.”

Albert stares at him, arms crossed. “It wasn’t just in ... there was it,” he states.

Cooper sets his jaw. “No.”

“He did something while he had you,” Albert guesses. It’s deliberate phrasing. BOB _had_ Cooper as surely as if he’d been holding a gun to his head.

Cooper is on his feet so smoothly, Albert envies him. He can stay on his feet for twelve hours, but after that, he’s pretty much useless. Flexibility has never been his strong point. Cooper paces across the room and this is new. Cooper does not pace. He stands still, withstands whatever comes toward him. He won’t admit to the kind of disquiet or impatience that pacing entails. The behavior goes on Albert’s mental list. He’s still dealing with the sweatpants and t-shirt that seem so far out of Cooper’s sartorial make up as to be alien.

“He would, I would--”

“ _He_ would, Cooper. Don’t conflate the two.”

“He would burn the coffee at the station. He would leave the heating element on, brew another batch. The place would stink. He would drink it,” Cooper says somewhat haltingly. “BOB was perverse. He wanted to twist everything I loved to hate. He wanted to destroy any source of joy, anything that could challenge his sovereignty of my body. I know all this. I know it was his design. But I cannot stop the way my body and mind react.”

“You’re not supposed to be able to, Coop. Not yet. It’s only been eleven days since you died, for Christ’s sake.”

But that kind of imperfection is no excuse for a man like Dale Cooper, who was on his feet investigating only hours after being shot in the gut. If Albert wasn’t so goddamned enamored with the man, he’d kill him. Instead, he sits on that spindly chair--he’s buying a new one if it’s going to get a ton of use--and watches Cooper sink to the floor again, breathing deeply, in and out, as the profusive stench of coffee buries the conversation.

*****

They establish a routine of sorts in that first week. Albert is always up first--the damn couch is murder on his back--and in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before he has to put something in his stomach. He munches on a bagel and lox until 8. He then goes to wake up Cooper. They both go back to the kitchen so that Cooper can make coffee and Albert can watch him. Cooper then meditates for at least an hour while Albert watches the ticker on CNN.

At night, they eat takeout or sometimes Albert will deign to cook. He doesn’t particularly enjoy it, but his abuela had been adamant that he learn a few basics before going out into the world. Cooper seems to enjoy it anyway and Albert feels a sort of reluctant pride that he can bring a smile to the other man’s face. They then retire to the living room to watch Jeopardy! and whatever brainless drama is on after. Albert often works crossword puzzles or his old cases during these. He doesn’t think Cooper pays attention either, considering the look on his face most of the time. Afterwards, they go to bed.

If Albert sometimes indulges in the scotch on the sidebar after he’s gone, Cooper doesn’t say anything.

Their days are the only variable times. Cooper sleeps more than anything. Albert hypothesizes that in the dark, his dreams are harder to elude. The daylight offers him some measure of safety. One day, Cooper is restless, wanting to go for a walk around the neighborhood (he lives off Washington Square and Albert would dearly like to know who he had to blackmail, bribe, or kill to get the location.) Another day, Cooper wants to go to his old neighborhood, which is on the other damn side of the city, but they go. Cooper enumerates all the ways it’s no longer his old neighborhood.

“There some reason we’re on a Leave-It-To-Beaver nostalgia trip when half this shit doesn’t exist anymore?”

“I feel a sense of displacement. A need to resettle all the parts of my life.”

“And that includes reminding yourself that things change and life actually goes on?” Albert grouses.

Cooper smiles. “To know that these things are mine and make up part of the sum of my being. That they change illuminates my own need to acknowledge changes as inevitabilities.”

*****

He goes back to work and Cooper apparently takes that as a sign to start acting like a house-wife. At least, that’s the only thing Albert can surmise when he arrives one evening and smells burning. He dumps his coat on the couch, keys still in hand, and makes long strides to the kitchen.

There’s no smoke, but that’s about the only upside to the mess. Cooper has, it appears, tried to cook dinner.

“Well, at least now I know why you go all out at restaurants,” Albert comments. Cooper jumps like he hadn’t known Albert was there. “What the hell were you trying to attempt?”

Cooper just points to the cookbook that has been shoved to the side and is now stained liberally with marinara sauce. Albert sighs and shoos the other man away. 

“I found myself in over my head quite early in the process,” Cooper admits. “This is nothing like cooking over a campfire in a tin cup.”

Albert shoots him a look, wondering about his friend’s past once again--there’s a lot that’s not in his personnel file--before snorting, “Yeah, marinara and meatballs from scratch are pretty well far from baked beans from a can.”

“Actually--” Albert cuts him off effectively by dumping the lot of it into the trash with a resounding thump.

Thursday night, after dinner, Cooper actually pours them both a drink, settling in with a book of philosophy and the TV tuned to CSPAN. It’s delightfully dull, a low drone in the background while Albert scribbles in a case file. 

On Saturday, Cooper presents a twelve pack of beers and they spend the evening heckling a basketball game. Well, Albert heckles and Cooper makes deliberately obtuse observations to counter the heckles.

Monday morning, he notices his shirts have been cleaned and pressed without having been to the laundromat and Cooper had picked up his suits from the dry cleaners after his Sunday afternoon constitutional.

Albert thinks he may be slowly losing his own mind.

*****

A week later, Albert is at the drugstore cursing himself for going back to work, for not having his kit, for thinking Cooper was anything close to healed. He knows what he needs and gathers tape, bandages, antiseptic, and ibuprofen. Stitches will have to wait. He’s back at the apartment within fifteen minutes.

Cooper hasn’t moved. Albert had dumped him in the tub and told him not to move. It is good to know that he can still follow simple instructions because Albert is angry and he is not _good_ at this. He is not understanding, he is not empathetic. He’s just the guy who knows what the hell happened and here he is.

He pulls the towels off Cooper’s thigh where there are three fairly deep gouges. The femoral artery hadn’t been nicked, thank the fucking lord cause he’s sure Cooper knows exactly where it is, but he’d held the towels there for ten minutes before he’d felt remotely comfortable leaving. Albert had wanted to haul him to ER, get stitches, but how would he explain it to the FBI when the visit showed up on Cooper’s insurance?

He couldn’t.

He patches Cooper up as much he can, the butterflies a sad substitute for sutures. He slaps about eight bandages over the wounds and tapes them as tight as he can. He pours water and shakes out three ibuprofen. He holds both out to Cooper, who takes them. Then he hauls the other man up. He’s lost weight. It’s not difficult.

Cooper has stopped eating. He drinks coffee and he meditates and he picks at the food Albert makes or brings in. Albert may have more vacation time than one can reasonably use in a year but he knows that installing himself as a babysitter will do nothing. Cooper is regressing quickly and dramatically.

Albert is suddenly fed up, suddenly barely able to see straight as he drags Cooper into the bedroom and dumps him on the messed duvet.

“Alright, that’s it. Tomorrow, you’re up at 8. You’re getting dressed, you’re having a cup of coffee, you’re eating breakfast, and you’re coming in with me.”

“Albert-”

“No, Coop, I won’t hear otherwise. I’ve done everything short of stick you on the couch and take notes while you talk about the dog you had when you were nine. You wanna tell me what’s going on in that magpie brain of yours, fine, but there are landmines everywhere and I am not even remotely qualified to find and deal with them.”

“I didn’t have a dog when I was nine.”

Albert inhales sharply and slides the chair from the corner to the bed, sitting and putting his face right up in Cooper’s. “Cooper, I am completely unimpressed with smart remarks. I cannot help you if you do not _allow_ me to help you. You’re the one with the degree in psychology so how about you stop bullshitting me and tell me exactly what’s going on with you.”

For a few minutes, all he hears is the ticking of a clock, old fashioned brass sitting on the tall dresser in the corner. Cooper’s eyes do not leave his for a long time. Even Albert can recognize the panic. Then, in the space of a moment, his mouth un-pinches and his gaze drops.

“I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Cooper says, his voice a susurration of silk over the cotton thick silence in the apartment

Albert knows he does, has known, and he thinks about his uncle and Vietnam, fireworks and-. “You reliving it?” he asks.

“Among other things.”

Christ, what’s Albert supposed to do, pry the words straight from his brain?

“What do I need to _watch for_?” Albert asks, exaggerating his question.

Cooper swallows. “Hypervigilance, startle reactions, substance abuse, avoidance, sleep and eating disturbances,” he lists off clinically.

In his head, Albert ticks off at least three of those. “So the coffee?”

Cooper explains, “Flooding is one of many therapeutic techniques with regard to unpleasant stimuli.” 

But Albert suspects he chose coffee only because it’s something he can control. Food is an issue. Sleep is an issue. Cooper has never been easily startled, in Albert’s experience, but now he’ll have to watch carefully.

“You’re not going to get better here,” Albert concludes. “We can’t keep holing you up and hoping you don’t run into something that sends you into an episode once you get back to work. More importantly, you need a real therapist. Hell, I'll pay for it out of pocket, but I am so far out of my league with this crap.”

He sits back in his chair with a sigh. Cooper is quiet and composed, but watchful. 

“What happened?” Albert asks.

“I think I was reliving that moment in the bathroom. But I was me, trying to get BOB out.”

Albert supposes he should be grateful Cooper hadn’t gone for his scalp or his chest. That he hadn’t tried to bash his brains out using the jutting edge of the medicine cabinet. He can feel his eye twitch with a frisson of fear.

He smooths a hand over rough stubble and allows himself a deep sigh. His edges are so frayed it’s going to take more than scotch to ease the way into sleep tonight and he wonders if he even should after tonight’s fiasco.

“You gonna be okay if I leave?”

“You’re leaving?” Albert doesn’t think he imagines the panic crinkling around the edges of that statement.

“To the couch,” Albert reassures him. It is a reassurance, he notes, because Cooper relaxes, takes a deep breath himself and nods. He waits to watch the other man swing his legs into bed and makes his way to the door.

“Albert?”

“Yeah,” he says, turning.

For all Cooper is two years older than him, the look he’s directing at Albert makes him feel about a thousand years older.

“Thank you.”

Albert doesn’t know what to do with that, so he nods and shuffles gratefully to the couch, scotch bottle in hand.

*****

The next day, he wakes up at 7:30, hungover and hating himself, and conducts his usual morning routine before going into Cooper’s bedroom. The other man looks exhausted for all that he’s dead asleep. Albert shoves his pity into a closet and shakes his shoulder.

“Hmph?”

“Rise and shine, Coop, today’s the first day of the rest of your life,” he says with what he hopes is the appropriate amount of sarcasm. “Shower and get dressed, I’m making breakfast.”

He waits while Cooper gets out of bed and shuffles to the bathroom, before retreating to the kitchen. He normally wouldn’t bother with a full breakfast on a weekday, but doughnuts and coffee are not going to cut it today. He fries up bacon and cooks the scrambled eggs in the saucepan the way his abuela taught him, folding in air. He doesn’t bother with toast. When the eggs are nearly done, he dumps a dollop of sour cream into them, making them even creamier, then throws some fresh chopped green onion in. He sets out salt and pepper, and salsa for himself, and is just putting down the food when Cooper emerges.

“A vast improvement,” Albert judges him. He’s managed a thin sweater and blue jeans. It will do for paperwork filing. “Eat up.”

Cooper eats with no enthusiasm, but he finishes the plate and even puts salsa on his eggs. If Albert didn’t know better, he would say Cooper was trying to impress him.

At headquarters, Albert dumps Cooper in his office with a backlog of paperwork and leaves him to Diane’s tender mercies. The secretary sticks him with a long hard look that Albert returns with interest. In his lab, Albert calls up an old roommate from University of Chicago and learns everything he can about PTSD. She’s understandably skeptical of his abilities and implores him to seek real professional help. He tells her it’s not really an option.

When he collects Cooper for lunch, he’s surprised to find he’s already taken care of it, sliding a sandwich from a local deli across the desk to Albert.

“Diane?”

“She suggested it.”

It is strange to find kinship with the woman who so often plays gatekeeper with Cooper. He knows they went on a date once--Diane is a stunner no matter what standard one judges by--but they retained a fully professional relationship thereafter. Albert thought she would never forgive him for his refusal to carry a gun, but she appears to have softened her opinion of him based on the soup and sandwich before him.

They eat in silence and Albert doesn’t embarrass Cooper by watching him blatantly, but he quirks a pleased eyebrow the other agent’s way when he notices most of his sandwich is gone and his soup is only a third full. A cup of coffee is presented to him as Albert is leaving and for once in the past month, Cooper looks genuinely interested in it. He sips carefully, with studied casualness in the gesture. He looks faintly troubled as Albert watches his Adam’s Apple bob, but the next sip is easier, his brow less furrowed.

When he asks Diane for a refill, Albert leaves him. Maybe that’s one hurdle down.

*****

They have a new routine after that day. Cooper insists that he will set an alarm and get up when Albert does. He doesn’t put on the standard suit, but looks more professional every day. He does paperwork and logs evidence and studies cold cases. Albert visits every lunch. 

“I don’t know how you can eat that,” Albert comments on the salad full of fruit. 

“It’s healthy and delicious,” Cooper tells him.

“It’s an abomination. Salad is just a delivery system for dressing and croutons.”

Albert has been keeping a careful mental log of the good days and bad days. Bad days are careful, small bites and an unfinished plate. They are a shrug when asked what he wants to eat and a disinterest in what is put in front of him. They are going pale and putting down his fork before forcing his head between his legs to stop from throwing it all back up.

There is nothing to precipitate these days so far. Perhaps they are simply the days Cooper is too far into his own head, too focused on memory. Albert switches things up. Pie is a no-go, but glazed doughnuts are alright. Eggs and bacon are good, but pancakes should be avoided at all costs. Albert’s nose still curls at the remembered stench of that particular mistake. Sandwiches are good, but salad is better. Mexican food, basically the only thing Albert can cook, is a definite plus. Inside his mental Cooper Map, Albert puts together a “safe diet” for the bad days, but even on the good days, Cooper would just as soon not eat than chance a problem.

“What are the Crusades,” Albert says.

_“What are the Crusades?”-- “Correct.”-- “World History for $600” -- “China's Manchu Dynasty originated in this region.”_

“What is Manchuria,” Cooper says. “Do you think a man can contain evil, can do evil and still retain their sense of self?”

“Cooper what the hell are you-- what is a concussion-- and speaking of which, do you have one?”

“Evil has presence and form. You once called it ‘the evil that men do,’ but can you believe that after what you have seen?”

Albert doesn’t answer. 

“I do not mean to call your beliefs into question, Albert. Far be it for me to deny or mock another’s beliefs, given my own, but I have struggled with this question, with this _fear_ that you believe I have that evil, that I am that evil, that I am forever in service to it, hunted and haunted by it.”

_“--$2000 in Gems. Calling this gem a yellow sapphire is a common error--it's not really a sapphire at all” -- “What is a canary diamond?” -- “No, I’m sorry we were looking for topaz. And with that you drop to--”_

When Albert was eight years old, he had rescued a kitten from the not-so-tender mercies of a kid down the block who thought the terrified mewling was hilarious. Albert had noticed him and, not being particularly fond of cruelty to animals and possessing little common sense when it came to his own safety, marched right up to snatch the kitten out of the other boy’s hands. He had run then, as he always had, and secreted himself and the kitten in his bedroom. He had snuck up tuna and milk and water and managed to keep the kitten hidden for two weeks before his abuela came to visit. She had sneezed for hours and the game had been up. Albert had been at school. When he came home, the kitten was gone. He hadn’t screamed, he hadn’t even cried though he had desperately wanted to in the calm, rational face of his father. He had stormed out and hadn’t come home until the streetlights had come on and the growling, hurting gnaw in his chest had calmed to pure misery.

“Jesus Coop,” Albert finally says, an explosion of frustration and anger blasting him up from the couch. He turns and glares at his friend. He has no words, everything he wants to say caught up in the phrase repeating in his head ‘ _how can you not **fucking** know?_ ’ “I don’t know how you can sit there and ask me that when I fucking _killed_ you to get that son of a bitch away from you.”

He’s out of the apartment before he can grab his windbreaker or his keys. He’s out and it’s fucking cold for April, but he’s so steamed he slaps the discomfort aside.

He walks and walks and the day was already dimming and then it’s dark and he’s standing in the middle of Washington Square feeling wretched, a familiar snarl sitting in his chest.

*****

They don’t mention the early evening stomp off or Cooper’s question.

“I’m seeing a therapist,” Cooper tells him over pho and sake bombs later that week. 

“Oh?” Albert comments, waiting to see where this is going, for the next shoe to drop.

“I realized how unfair I had been to you. Relying solely on your care and vigilance and taking little responsibility for myself.”

“You haven’t exactly chained me to your apartment, Coop.”

“Perhaps not, but I feel that your sense of obligation--”

“Oh shut up. There’s no obligation.” 

“Thank you anyway, Albert,” Cooper says.

On Friday, they complete their usual morning routine, but neither of them have cases. They go in out of duty--to check the paperwork, to check in with Gordon, to beg for work and be denied--but have the afternoon with nothing to do. Albert would usually use this kind of downtime to get himself up to date with the latest forensic journals, to finish the articles he’s had sitting around waiting for completion, or even to clean up his place. But he doesn’t feel like reading, he doesn’t feel like writing, and he hasn’t really been home in nearly two months except to check his messages and get new clothes.

Instead of using the rare free afternoon to pursue individual pursuits, they tacitly decide to find something to do together. Somehow, this means going to the Phillies-Pirates game, still in suits and ties, though they leave the jackets in the car. Albert is a die-hard Mets fan and he’s not a great fan of either Pennsylvania team, but he decides to root for the Pirates in hopes of irking Cooper, who barely bats an eyelash beyond the knowing look when Albert cheers as Barry Bonds hits home plate.

But Cooper is grinning. It’s so much like his old self that Albert grins back. In a moment they are laughing. They aren’t laughing at anything, nothing Albert could attest to, but they are suddenly hysterical. Cooper’s laugh is pure, eyes practically disappearing in mirth. That laugh, with it’s light giggle, with its self consciousness, is so unlike BOB’s cackle that Albert doesn’t even question it. Instead--

“Another beer?”

“And a hot dog,” Cooper suggests. “I do believe hot dogs are customary at such an event. You might also consider a box of popcorn.”

“You’ll get a hot dog and like it,” Albert grumbles, as he heads up the stairs. He can’t help but be a little pleased though. He gets the dogs and beers and when he hands them off to Cooper to flick his shades back on, he’s struck with near perfect contentment. It’s a perfect day and it feels stolen.

Theirs is an intimacy borne of necessity, but it had quickly become normalized. Albert, obviously, can only pretend at being a sympathetic, kind human for so long before his innate desire to be honest (rude and sarcastic) takes over. Cooper grasps at normalcy with ruthlessness. 

“Kintsugi,” Cooper says out of nowhere one day, coming in late after work in an odd reversal of roles. 

“Salud,” Albert says distractedly. He is, after all, fiddling around with the stupid key dish that he’d knocked off the hall table when he arrived home. It hadn’t precisely _shattered_ , but the pieces were still small enough that they resisted his large fingers as he meticulously dotted adhesive along of the rough edges.

“My father’s wife gave that to me when I rented this place. I believe she made it herself.”

Albert feels his shoulders hunch, “Hence my amateurish attempt to repair the damn thing despite its hideousness.”

“I’ve often been struck by its perfect awfulness as well.”

Albert pauses mid-dab before lifting his head to glare at Cooper. He’s smiling. Albert huffs his own laughter, burying a smile as he affixes the piece.

“So what was that gibberish you were spewing when you walked in?” He asks, reaching for the last piece.

“It’s a Japanese art form, filling in the fault lines of broken pottery with precious metals like gold in order to highlight the beauty of the cracks.”

“Gorilla Glue hardly qualifies as a precious anything,” he mentions.

“It also informs a philosophy of living in the moment, of accepting changes and even illuminating those changes as beautiful, even necessary. The breakages are not the end of the piece, only events in the life of the piece.”

Albert doesn’t pretend ignorance. He just meets Cooper’s eyes. “Bit cliche, isn’t it?”

Cooper’s grin feels like triumph.

*****

Cooper keeps everything meticulously neat. There’s no obsessive compulsiveness, just a sense of order and comfort. Albert puts it down to Zen bullshit and concedes to putting his keys in the dish and leaving the paper in a neat stack on the coffee table. Sometimes, he tosses his keys on the table, purposefully missing the dish in an act of unspeakably childish rebellion.

But Albert is a stickler about both toilet paper and kitchen orientation. The end piece of paper goes over the top. That’s just the way it is. Cooper has obviously never paid much attention to kitchen organization and only watched with bemusement as Albert shifted the order of spices and the positioning of the knife block--Albert’s own.

“These are Henckels. These are _heirlooms_. My grandmother will rise from the grave and haunt your ass if you harm them. You try any funny stuff with _these_ knives, Cooper, I’ll skin you alive,” Albert had told him. He’d regretted it immediately, except that Cooper had taken it in the spirit it was meant and put up his hands in mock surrender. Albert knows the term “kid gloves,” but has never known when to put them on.

Otherwise, they become surprisingly easy roommates. There are no toothpaste globs in the sink or beard hairs in the drain. There’s no battle over hot water or carefully divided food or liquor. There are no embarrassing boners or inappropriate touching. Part of Albert forgets that he’s halfway in love with Cooper until a stray thought, the question of leaving, occurs to him.

He’s too comfortable and in the middle of the night his hackles go up so high that he barely manages to doze until the next morning. He’s prickly and self-aware the next morning, movements jerky and full of a kind of testy anger he can’t tamp down. Usually, he wouldn’t try. Albert is nothing if not fully aware of how unpleasant he is. He’s only two years younger than Cooper and now the same level of seniority--fast gaining ground while Cooper is busy trying to find some that’s solid. He did not obtain his position or the trust of Gordon Cole by being an agreeable fellow. He has fought for everything that he has achieved, often to the resentment of his classmates, his professors, and his colleagues.

Cooper upsets all the carefully formed notions he has of himself.

The other man seems to catch on to his mood quickly, tip-toeing around him, and Albert makes an effort to soothe the valley between his eyes, to stop himself from blowing out large breaths of deep seated anxiety.

The next evening, Cooper suggests they go out. It’s actually startling how much the idea bothers Albert. He can’t say anything, he can’t make it seem unusual, but of course it is now that Albert has had this revelation.

They go out because Albert can’t think of a sane reason not to.

The evening continues strangely. They both dress in jeans. For all he had seen Cooper dressed down for his paperwork days, now it feels odd, like he is wearing a costume instead of being dressed for comfort. Albert always changes into jeans almost immediately when he arrives hom-- _back at the apartment_ , but he skin crawls as he shrugs a casual jacket over his henley.

The night is breezy after a mild afternoon and they walk in silence to a pub about 15 minutes away. There are plenty of people out tonight as it is one of the few nights since the weather turned finer that it has not rained. They aren’t even the only two men walking side by side, but Albert is acutely aware of the space between them and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“I know the circumstances have not been ideal, Albert, but I have truly enjoyed getting to know you better these past months,” Cooper says.

Albert thinks on what to say, “My attitude of general unpleasantness notwithstanding? You getting Stockholm Syndrome?”

The smile on Cooper’s face could almost be called affectionate if Albert were the sort of person to look for affection when it comes to himself.

“I would like to think of myself as someone who can learn to see beyond the superficial,” Cooper says.

“No, deep down, I really am that unpleasant.”

Cooper shoots him a look, one usually directed at Gordon when he’s wondering if the older man is pulling his leg. Albert refuses to concede the point though. He’s not pleasant, he’s not nice, he doesn’t mince words. That he lives his life in service to something greater than himself and by the principles of nonviolence does not mean he is, underneath the prickly exterior, some kind of gooey marshmallow.

“Well, no matter how you regard yourself, I am quite happy to call you my friend.”

Albert wrestles with control, but nods, “Same, Coop.”

*****

Three months after Twin Peaks, Cooper goes on his first field assignment. Albert doesn’t know why the hell he’s letting himself into Cooper’s apartment. He doesn’t know why he’s hanging his suit jacket and tossing his keys in the dish and leaving his shoes by the door. He doesn’t know why he’s making coffee and checking the refrigerator for leftovers. He doesn’t know why he’s settling at the kitchen table with a forensic journal and coffee and a hastily assembled sandwich.

Mid-chew, mid-word, mid-thought, he stops. He is no longer needed here.

He does a thorough accounting of the most recent incidents and can’t even remember the last one in 2 weeks. Cooper hasn’t asked him to leave and that has largely been his gauge of how acceptable it is to still be here, but now he wonders, worries, that he has become a crutch. They still have lunch every day they can, they still pass each other the paper over bacon and doughnuts in the morning, they still argue over dinner. They still let each the other know when they’ll be leaving work. They have a routine, but Albert now resolves that it is false. It is something they have fallen into and he doesn’t know if it’s doing Cooper any good.

Cooper sees a therapist twice a week. It’s time for Albert to leave.

He doesn’t just clear out while Cooper’s away, leaving a “thanks for the hospitality” note. He’s learned something in the way of human decency, even if the niceties mostly make him want to shove his own head in a toilet. But he clears up. He gets his crap together in the bathroom, back into the travel bag, rather than sitting out for everyday use. He packs the spices and the knives (after one last outing on a flat iron steak that had tasted like nirvana).

When he returns from work on a Thursday, Cooper is back, standing in the kitchen and looking confused.

“Albert, is there any possibility someone broke in very stealthily, left the TV and VCR and took your knives?”

Albert takes a breath and drops his suit jacket on a hook. “I took them back to my apartment,” he tells Cooper, casually as he can.

Cooper looks around at him, something like dreadful understanding in his eyes. “I see.”

“How’d the case go?” Albert asks, masochistic to the last.

“It went well.” Albert has his answer.

He nods, trying to looks resolute, trying to let Cooper in on the reasoning.

“When, do you suppose-?” Cooper is uncharacteristically faulting.

“Over the weekend, I figured. You’re doing better. I think staying any longer, I’ll become a hindrance, not a help.” He makes it sound clinical and reasonable, he leans casually against the back of his-- _the_ couch. He makes it sound like Cooper’s gotten parole even when his face is trying to tell Albert otherwise. “Enchiladas tonight? Celebrate a little?”

Cooper gives him a very small smile, “That would be quite fine.”

*****

Albert wakes with a start when weight makes his body slip to the side. Cooper is sitting at his hip. He’s wearing those stupid pajamas. Clad only in a t-shirt and boxers, Albert kind of wishes he had a pair himself.

“Albert, I am going to kiss you and I--I am very much afraid of your reaction, so please bear with me.”

“Coop,” he rasps, “What--” but he doesn’t finish his sentence.

Cooper is kissing him.

Jesus Christ on a _goddamn_ cross, Dale Cooper is kissing him and--

Cooper is no longer kissing him.

His mind is in a fog and his heart is a bomb in his chest. Cooper stares at him with deep green eyes that reflect no light, his mouth slack and vulnerable. Albert’s lip tingle with remembered sensation. It was a barely there kiss. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t amazing, but the warmth, the light chapping, the shallow breaths from Cooper’s nose had conspired to make it one of the best Albert can remember.

As thought returns, he is immediately flooded with suspicion and presses himself away from the other man, against the corner of the couch.

“What the hell was that?”

“I apologize for not gaining your consent before, but I’m not ready for you to leave,” Cooper says, sincere and honest.

“That’s not an answer, Coop,” Albert retorts, still thrown, still digging out hope with the sound reasoning that Cooper isn’t thinking straight, isn’t doing as well as he thought.

Cooper sits back. “I have been examining the changes in myself. Not those wrought by evil, but those restored by goodness. My pieces have been restored with something infinitely more precious and yet so much more durable. It would be easy to call this feeling gratitude, but I don’t think gratitude manifests in frequent physical desire or bereftness at the thought of losing your company. I desire you, Albert. I want to see your smile and hear your voice. Your sarcasm and your humor can get me through the day. I desire your goodness and your body.”

He says all this matter of factly, with no fanfare or passion. He doesn’t even hold Albert’s hand. But the thing that convinces Albert is the knowledge he has had all along: Dale Cooper does not ask for what he does not want.

Albert grabs the stupid pajamas by the collar and pulls him in.

“Yeah, yeah, enough with the sappy declarations. Your trauma has been cock-blocking me for months.”

Cooper’s laugh is a pure thing. He is a man who will always grace you with a broad grin or an affectionate smile, but he does not laugh easily or often.

Kissing is easy, easier than it should be for colleagues turned friends turned loves. Albert suspects it’s that Tibetan nonsense that tells Cooper exactly which way to turn his head, exactly how to coax Albert’s tongue into his own mouth, exactly how to wake up every part of Albert that’s been on autopilot since Twin Peaks.

Cooper’s fingers trace his jaw, rubbing over stubble, slipping down to the neck of his t-shirt, pulling at it.

“Not how shirts work, Coop,” Albert says, pulling away to pull it off and to divest Cooper of his own. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before and there’s still a shiny red spot where he was shot, but goddamn if all that smooth skin wouldn’t tempt a man right off a ledge. He presses Cooper back, briefly notes the tent in his pants, and kisses him. For over ten years, Albert has been imagining what it would be like to kiss the man and he’s going to fulfill every single inch of that fantasy now.

Cooper is, unsurprisingly, uncooperative. 

Albert presses all his unexpressed affection into Cooper’s mouth, pulling at lips that refuse to stop smiling. He bites at the jut of chin that is both stubborn and vulnerable. He nips and kisses down a long strong neck and marvels at the speed of the pulse he can feel under his tongue. All the while, Cooper’s hands tug at his neck, his biceps, his rapidly receding hair. 

“Watch the hair, Coop, or I’ll lose what little I have left.”

He knows the blanket has shifted and surely Cooper can see just how soon Albert is going to embarrass himself from just a few kisses. The hands cupping his head pull him back and he’s being pushed back onto his pillow.

“Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present,” Cooper says before removing Albert’s boxers and, without ceremony, swallowing down Albert’s cock.

“ _Holy--_ ” Albert shouts before he can even chuff out a laugh at the corny pronouncement. Cooper’s not terribly experienced, but he’s definitely enthusiastic and, really, Albert isn’t going to last long enough for it to matter.

A lot is happening at once and Albert has never been very good at sorting his feelings into easily referenced compartments and the want has been for so long and so deep and he’s already trying to still the rebellious thrusts of his hips. He doesn’t dare grab for Cooper’s head, throwing his arms away, and the back of the couch and the armrest creak as he clutches them. The tongue that teases the head of his cock is curious and then confident. The hand around the base of his cock is sure and steadily pumping. God, Albert can’t even look at him, can’t look down at disheveled black hair and know that he’s looking at Dale. He closes his eyes.

Dale is making little noises, small, desperate. Not whimpers but something that entreats Albert to open his eyes, to look down.

He’s touching himself.

“Fuck, fuck, uh, Coop--” he presses at a shoulder but it doesn’t matter. He comes, nails digging into that shoulder. He shudders and gasps and he can’t stop his hips and Dale doesn’t move, lips sealed around the head of his cock and Albert throws back his head because he has literally dreamt of this and _fuck._

*****

They move to the bed. Albert refuses to be awkward about this shit and he refuses to stay on a couch when the owner of said bed has just sucked his brains out of his cock. He wants to test out his considerable skills on the erection still hilariously distorting Cooper’s pajamas, but the middle of the night orgasm and prospect of a 7AM alarm tell him he’s not going to be able to do anything fancy.

He decides, ultimately, to return the favor and that, it turns out, is an amazing idea.

Dale Cooper is a wild thing in bed and that is knowledge he will cherish for the rest of his life if this is the only chance he’s going to get to see it. Dale is entirely unashamed of his body or its reactions. He throws away his pants and boxers like the inconveniences they are and doesn’t give one iota of protest when Albert, proverbially, goes to town. He clutches and caresses and writhes like a satyr. He tastes like any other man Albert has had his mouth around and that is actually a relief.

Cooper is real. He is a man and he has all the same desires and fears of any other man. That he is all of these things and yet so much _better_ in spite of them is only one of the myriad reasons Albert loves him and the main reason he will never let himself take this for granted.

Cooper comes with a joyful noise and Albert swallows it all--easier clean up. He’s not a cuddler, but he allows Cooper to pull him up, to turn them on their sides, to sling their arms around each other. He allows Cooper to make eye contact, to smile at him softly. It coaxes a smile onto his own face even as his eyes droop.

He knows he is not a particularly handsome man, most especially in comparison to his partner. He knows his smiles are smaller, always a little bitter. His eyes don’t sparkle.

But Dale Cooper is looking at him like he’s the world’s best cup of coffee.

“So I take it I should bring back the knives?”

“At least until we find our own place.”

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't necessarily do all I intended to do, however at one point I realized that if I tried to make it do that, it wouldn't be this. And I quite like this. Maybe one day we'll see Cooper's side of things--see the really awful aftermath--but this does what I want for now.


End file.
